I just spent a week away from work. My older kids were at camp for 5 days, and the youngest stayed with a friend. I didn’t cook, clean or organize anything. We went out for dinner, talked, went to bed and got up when we pleased. Why am I still tired?

 

So here’s what was supposed to happen. I scheduled the kids to be at camp the week of my birthday. Since I don’t work on my birthday anyway and I was going to have 75% of my kids gone, I figured I might as well take advantage of the situation and take the whole week off. Then, if I sent the youngest to someone else’s house, I could have a completely quiet place to rest. We had already gone on an activity filled vacation (spring skiing in Colorado), so this summer week off was supposed to be low key and relaxing.

Because I have a tendency to clean and organize whenever I’m in my house (it always seems to be a mess!), I thought it would be best if we took a couple of days away from home to get me out of the house and away from the temptation to take on new projects. So we scheduled a couple of nights at our favorite B&B in Asheville, NC, planning to take the day before and the day after to rest at home.

 

On the road…

 

So we hustled and got all the kids packed up and dropped off. A couple of dear friends were in town taking their kids to camp for the same week, so they spent the night at our house on Sunday after the drop off. We went out to dinner and talked and had a great time.

Monday was my birthday. After our friends headed to Florida for their week without kids, Perry ran around getting things done and I sat in our sunroom. All day. I read, meditated, napped, and did yoga. It was glorious! He came back in the mid afternoon and we went out to an early dinner.

Tuesday morning I got a manicure and pedicure. When I got back, we fiddled around getting the house closed up and the car packed. We got on the road mid afternoon and drove the three hours to Asheville, talking the whole time. We got Jamaican for dinner and read and slept.

Wednesday we had our breakfast and I went to a foot soak and massage appointment. Afterwards, I went to my favorite makeup place and bought a few things. Then we spent a couple of hours at an old bookstore, eating a cheese platter and drinking a glass of wine. I needed a nap, so we went back to the B&B and I napped while Perry did a puzzle. We went out to dinner and came back to read and sleep some more.

Thursday after breakfast and check out we went to a tea shop to pick up some hibiscus tea leaves and drink tea together. Then we drove home and went out for Indian food.

Friday our friends came back from Florida. The guys went to play golf, my friend had to do some shopping, so I was on my own most of the day. I got adjusted at the chiropractor, walked around my favorite consignment store. I had the house to myself for a couple of hours before we got back together for dinner.

 

My sunroom – a favorite place to rest!

 

And that was it. Saturday we picked up the kids from camp and the little one came home. We worked on unpacking and washing the piles of laundry that came back with them from camp. The kids made a salad, we ordered pizza, and we watched some Lord Of The Rings together. Sounds like a great week, right?

Well, it was. What I couldn’t figure out was why at the end of the week I was so cranky. I hadn’t had to take care of a child or a patient or a schedule for days. You’d think I would be completely peaceful and happy, but I wasn’t. It just didn’t make sense! My husband was already talking about doing this again next year, how it was such a great week, and I just couldn’t figure out what exactly was my problem.

 

 

At first, I started trying to figure it out as I usually do – I started talking about it. I think I hurt my husband’s feelings though, because he thought we’d had a great week together. He felt like we’d relaxed and taken it pretty easy. And I loved spending the week with him! But I still felt like I went from activity to activity instead of resting. That was the beginning of the diagnosis. I was looking for a week of rest, and I planned enough things to do that I didn’t feel like I had rested. For someone else (like my husband), the week we experienced was very calm. But for me, even going to spa appointments and dinners was more scheduled than I needed.

Part 2 of the diagnosis came when I started looking back. We talked about several things that were very important to us – our retirement vision, our health and fitness goals, financial planning. These were critical issues that we just couldn’t seem to make any progress in our normal lives. I had been praying for change in each of these areas, and we made huge progress in each. The problem was that my expectation that this was the week for MY rest. I hadn’t planned to do a lot of critical thinking and mental gymnastics. I just wanted to be still! You know what? That may not have been what the week was for, even if my plan was otherwise.

The final piece of the diagnosis came when I started looking at myself. Ever realize that your problem isn’t all the things you see around you, but is coming from within? My mind is very busy. I can use the messiness of the house, or the presence of the children, or the list of things to do as a reason to get distracted, but the truth is that I don’t know how to rest well. For decades I’ve practiced task completion and accomplishing goals, but I’m a novice at getting still and staying there. Rest is not dependent on location or lack of distraction. It’s for me to be resting, not getting away to rest. My inner planner was what needed to be closed and silenced, not finding the time or the perfect place get away.

 

 

I need to rest more. I’m just not good at it yet. It took removing almost every possible distraction to figure out that I’m the reason I don’t rest. Is it easier when it’s quiet? Sure. Could a month away in Bali help me slow down? Absolutely! But if I’m going to find rest, it’s going to take some deliberate effort at growing this skill. Because that’s what is it: a skill. It’s a skill I desperately need to have in my life, in my being. So here, each day of this messy chaotic, glorious life, I will practice finding rest.

 

What about you? Do you find ways to truly rest, or do you struggle? Please share in the comments below!